Reach Out - Collaborative Information Sharing in Mobile Situations

Abstract: We believe that we today, more than ever before, move around in the world. With us we have our faithful friend, our mobile phone. As we move around the people around us change, which is something that most of us do not think about, and therefore we do not take advantage of it. We do not see the great supply of knowledge and information that surrounds us because these people are strangers to us. At the same time, many people have no problem opening up their lives to strangers on the Internet through homepages, communities, blogs, chats, etc. What if you had the possibility to take advantage of information that people around possess and share information with them with your mobile phone? With this thesis we wanted to research when, and in what situations people would want to share information with others through their mobile phone. And what kind of information would you want to share with the people around you for personal reasons? By performing a user centred study we developed an application that facilitates the possibility to take advantage of the supply of knowledge and information from friends and strangers around you when moving around. This process gave us insights saying that the situation affect with who and what information people want to share through their mobile phone.